Category Archives: Competition

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• More new toys!
• More on field target
• Shooting opportunities galore!
• And the winner is…
• Same time next year!

Today, we’ll return to the Pyramyd Air Cup for a last look at the event. Some of you have also visited my social network pages and may have seen some of these pictures already, but they’ll be new to everyone else.

More new toys!
People bring their new ideas to me at these events, and the Pyramyd Air Cup was no exception. This is how I learn about many of the new things that are happening.

Someone mentioned in the comments wanting to see what a KalibrGun airgun looks like (the Cricket and the Hummingbird), so I’ll show them here. Both guns are bullpups (guns whose actions extend back to the butt of the gun to reduce overall length). The Hummingbird is longer, but it’s still quite compact.

• New toys!
• A job well done
• Many new developments
• Competition
• Field target

The Pyramyd Air Cup was held in Ohio this past weekend, and more than 70 shooters showed up to compete. I met people who drove in from Georgia, New York, Wisconsin and other states, and many of them came just to learn about airguns. That worked out well because there were world champion field target shooters there, plus celebrities like airgun hunter and writer Jim Chapman and Airgun Reporter Paul Capello, and many of the staff from Pyramyd Air and Crosman.

Before I begin, I want to remind you that there are two airgun shows this month. On April 12, there’s Flag City Toys That Shoot in Findlay, Ohio. I’ll have a table there, so please stop by and say hello if you can. For more information about this show, go to their website at flagcitytoysthatshoot.com.

On Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, the Arkansas airgun show will be held in Malvern, which is near Little Rock. Email show organizer Seth Rowland for more info or to reserve a table. I’ll also be there and hopefully have a table, too. So, stop by and say hello. Remember, these airgun shows happen just once each year, so they’re worth driving the extra miles to see.

My wife, Edith, and I have to renew our Texas Concealed Handgun Licenses in another month. So we have been practicing in the house with BB and pellet guns. This was more for Edith than for me because I usually get out to the firing range several times each month, and I shoot handguns quite often. You can never practice too much, but I wasn’t the one who was concerned.

Edith doesn’t shoot as much as I do. Most of the time she is glued to her keyboard, working on the Pyramyd Air website in one capacity or another. She has her own Glock model 36 in .45 ACP as a carry gun, and we tricked it out with a better trigger, laser designator and a Wolff barrel that allows the use of my reloads without the gun blowing up (the notorious Glock kaboom). She was concerned about the upcoming qualification and felt she needed to get ready. And who am I to argue with more shooting opportunities?

While I was at the courthouse awaiting jury selection the other day, I was reading a favorite gun book, Yours Truly Harvey Donaldson, edited by David R. Wolfe and published in 1980 by Wolfe Publishing Company, Prescott, Arizona. In the book, Wolfe assembles letters and articles written by Harvey Donaldson, one of America’s top shooters, and cartridge developers. He is best-known for his .219 Donaldson Wasp cartridge, but he actually worked on dozens of different centerfire cartridges over the 89 years of his fruitful life. And he was a schuetzen shooter on top of all of that. Schuetzen rifles are single-shot rifles with incredibly accurate barrels that shoot lead bullets at low velocities. They typically shoot at 100 and 200 yards, either offhand or rested on a bench. The best of them have been known to put 10 bullets into a group that measures under one-half inch at 200 yards, which is a challenge that’s difficult to equal with modern arms today.

Daisy’s new Powerline model 35 multi-pump air rifle is designed for youth. It’s a smoothbore with several interesting features.

I’m retesting an airgun that I tested over a year ago. One of our readers called Daisy and said he was getting much better accuracy from his Daisy model 35 multi-pump air rifle than I had gotten in my test, and he asked Daisy if they would look into it. Well, they read the accuracy report (Part 3) and agreed with him that I should have gotten better accuracy than I did. So Joe Murfin, Daisy’s vice president of marketing, called and asked if I would be open to a retest.

This test of the Daisy Avanti Champion 499 at 10 meters was requested a couple weeks back by a blog reader, and several of you seconded the request. It was in response to a discussion of the spin rate of projectiles and what benefits it conveys.

After I agreed to write the report, another reader asked me to test not only the Avanti Precision Ground Shot that’s made specifically for the 499, but also some more common BBs. So, today, we’ll see how the 499 performs at the 5-meter distance for which it was designed, as well as at 10 meters. I think we’re in for some interesting ballistics.